Pruning is “always a big January job” TV gardening guru Monty Don has recommended UK gardeners carry out and have “finished by the end of this month”.

Before pruning everything in your garden, Monty advised gardeners to “try to understand how something grows”.

If you’re unsure whether a plant needs pruning or how it grows, he suggested holding off on the shears and waiting.

He added: “You will never do harm by not pruning and patience in a garden is a great virtue.”

Winter pruning aims to encourage vigour so that fruit trees are productive and shrubs don’t outgrow their space.

Plants to prune now

1. Apple and pear trees

Monty warned that if gardeners prune an apple tree hard in the winter, it will “make a mass of new growth but no flowers and therefore no fruit”.

He continued: “This cycle is often perpetuated by even harder pruning the following year to get rid of all that new, fruitless growth, which, having lots of lovely succulent sap, will attract aphids and fungal disease.”

The green-fingered expert cautioned that people can “ruin their fruit trees” by over-pruning in the winter.

However, some pruning is necessary. To prune apple and pear trees, start by removing any crossing or rubbing branches. Cut back any overlong or straggly branches to a bud to “promote vigorous multi-stemmed regrowth”.  

Keep standing back and reviewing the shape so that it both looks handsome and retains a strong, open structure.

2. Trained fruit

Monty said the harder you cut trained fruit, the stronger they will regrow. Gardeners should trim back any weak growth on these plants in winter to encourage “stronger and vigorous new shoots in spring”.

However, gardeners should remember to prune them again in July to control growth.

3. Soft fruit

Autumn-fruiting raspberries should be cut back to the ground in January. Red currant and gooseberry bushes also require pruning to create an open goblet shape, with any remaining growth cut back by a third.

4. Trained and decorative trees and shrubs

January is also a good time to prune pleached lime trees and regenerated hedges. For lime trees, remove new growth to renew their basic structure in the spring.

“This creates thousands of brightly coloured whippy stems that we shred and use as mulch and for temporary paths,” Monty said.

Pruning hedges in January allows them to grow back stronger, and overgrown deciduous hedges can be cut back to the ground this month to regrow thicker and denser.

However, Monty cautioned that this technique is not suitable for most evergreen hedges, except for yew, box, and holly, which should be pruned in the spring months.